


Carry That Weight

by coaldustcanary



Category: The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 23:33:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16397198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coaldustcanary/pseuds/coaldustcanary
Summary: Esca will return for him.Marcus isn't sure how he feels about that.





	Carry That Weight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flere_Imsaho](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flere_Imsaho/gifts).



The Eagle was heavy.

He’d known it would be; he wasn’t entirely a fool. Still, the solid mass of it had surprised him. Gilded and polished until it shone, it was nevertheless solid bronze beneath, a reminder of the unyielding magnificence of Rome’s honor.

His father’s burden. His own, now. But perhaps he could yield it and still expiate his family’s honor yet.

But Esca had pressed the Eagle back into his arms, refusing his request to take it and flee. Marcus had taken the full weight of it upon his chest and found himself uncertain of his ability to breathe.

_I will return_ , Esca had promised, meeting his gaze fiercely, the pressure of his palm against Marcus’s neck the only thing that kept him upright, until it, and Esca, were gone.

As Esca sprinted away into the gloom, Marcus sagged into the river stones supporting him. He drew a shuddering, gasping breath, and then another. Clutching the Eagle in his arms, he listened for the sound of Esca’s footfalls until they were lost in the rush of river and rain.

Marcus wished Esca had taken the Eagle.

But more than that, Marcus wished Esca had learned to lie.

* * *

Cradling the Eagle to his chest, Marcus dreamt.

_Dim light dappled through trees high above him, through leaves trembling under the beating rain-_

_-slender shafts of light piercing the dark of an unending wood, through which he ran until his heart was fit to burst-_

_-shining down upon the swaying mule cart, where he writhed in fever-borne delirium-_

_-beating on the dusty ground, swallowing up the lifted blade and the screaming, the cheers-_

_-glinting from the chariot’s spoke as it tilted, looming large on the horizon to bear him down into darkness._

A riot of images assaulted him, none lasting for long, the light suffusing every moment strangely so that every detail was softened as if by a morning mist. His father rode out of the pale shadows on a silver horse, the Eagle shining golden atop a standard bedecked with laurels. But he saw only his father’s face, blood staining it scarlet from brow to chin. His eyes were stark in his ruined visage, milky-pale and unseeing.

“My son.” A whisper only, but it sliced him to the core.

“Father,” Marcus cried.

“Failure,” his father hissed, sliding his blade free of its scabbard in a swift motion, laying it against Marcus’s neck. The edge was hot, stinging his flesh, and Marcus let out a ragged breath.

“I’m sorry, Father.”

The blade burned as it sliced into his throat, and Marcus tasted blood as he bit back a scream.

* * *

He woke to thunder, panting for breath, the hard rasp of every inhalation stinging his throat. Esca’s absence was louder than the storm, but Marcus was relieved to find himself still alone. He was too tired for anger, too far gone to feel betrayed.

Besides, Esca hadn’t lied. He would return; he was a man of his word. Marcus could only hope the Eagle would still be here when Esca returned to retrieve it.

Marcus wished that he might see Esca reclaim the Eagle, for he was certain the other man would. Not, perhaps, for Rome, or even for Marcus himself, but to keep his promise.

Marcus wished that he might see Esca.

Haltingly, he pulled himself up to sit against the rocks, swallowing every grunt of pain and clenching his teeth on a cry as his leg slid over the ground. The pain was distant, now, thanks to the cold. He might even die of it before the Seal people’s dogs sniffed him out. It wasn’t such a bad away to go, but he couldn’t allow himself to depart this earth sleeping. Tightening his right arm around the Eagle, he stretched out his left for a branch, catching it with his fingertips, and began to fashion a pole to bear the standard.

* * *

The dreams took him again before long, his fingers slipping over smooth-scraped wood as he worked and faded from the present.

Marcus remembered a dark night, with a dark moon, where even the stars hid themselves behind the clouds.  He and Esca had dared to rest, each one after the other, and then a little more besides, sleepless but huddled next to one another in the dark. The tribes might not be moving in a night such as this one, but neither could they.

A heavy weight pressed down upon his chest under a dark and starless sky, but it was not unwelcome.

Esca’s lean body bearing him down, down, down into the blanket spread over sand and leaves beneath a rocky overhang. Every sound of their movement was swallowed by the pitch dark, or by Esca’s mouth, hard and hungry against his own.

There was so much that Marcus wished to ask, and so many words he ought to have – needed to – say. He clutched at Esca’s arms, trying to hold him close but begging wordlessly for a respite in their frantic motions to speak, but Esca murmured an incomprehensible torrent of words between each searing movement of his mouth against Marcus’s own, drowning Marcus’s attempts to speak with the liquid syllables of his native language.

Marcus had a poor ear for individual words of Esca’s tongue, but he knew the sound of a plea and of a warning as Esca mouthed both against the flesh of his neck.

He wrapped his arms around Esca’s body, fingers tracing his spine, palm splayed flat against his shoulder blade, and pulled him down more tightly.

* * *

Settled atop a crudely-whittled staff, the Eagle was still heavy.

The rain had spent itself, and so too had the day, nearly. The shadow cast by the standard as he righted it, using it to drag himself to his feet, was long. Without the rushing patter of the rain, he could hear the distant baying of dogs.

Marcus wished that they would hurry and come upon him while there was still light.

Marcus wished there might have been another, different night.


End file.
